Chapter 87 It's because I'm afraid that one day...
After Zhou Yue returned to Zhengyuan, he felt like he had been pulled into a high-speed machine. Early in the morning, the meeting room door would close on time, and there would be a continuous stream of investment reports and project roadshows, which would often last for three or four hours.
At noon, he would hastily eat a couple of bites of his lunchbox at his desk, only to be reminded by his assistant that he had three conference calls in the afternoon. Occasionally, before evening even arrived, he would have to rush off to social engagements, a smile on his face, while he downed one glass of alcohol after another.
He often doesn't get back to the office until 10 p.m., staring at the screen to deal with the backlog of emails and documents. Then, in the early hours of the morning, he has to go online to participate in a video conference with the New York team. The person on the other end of the screen speaks very fast, and he has to force himself to stay awake and respond to each message.
A few hours later, he dragged his weary body to the airport, where a bench in the waiting area served as his makeshift bed.
On the plane, he opened his documents while everyone else closed their eyes to rest. He sat upright, quickly browsing investment reports, making annotations and signing in the cramped space.
After landing at noon, he was taken directly to the client's company without even having time to eat. He was still impeccably dressed in a suit. Everyone only saw the calm, sharp, and flawless President Zhou, but no one knew that just a moment ago he was in the car awkwardly eating a cold hamburger, with coffee being the only thing that kept him awake.
When night fell, I returned to my hotel room alone, and fell asleep on the bed without even taking off my coat.
When he woke up in the morning, there were dozens of unread messages piled up there. He just glanced at them silently, then swiped his finger across them and first checked Xia Zhiyao's WeChat, telling her that he was too tired and fell asleep yesterday.
Sometimes, in the early morning at the airport, as he watches the crowds rushing by in the hall, holding his boarding pass in his hand, he suddenly thinks of Xia Zhiyao. He thinks of her, how she was just like that, rushing between meetings and clients day after day, always keeping herself ramrod straight.
In that instant, he really wanted to send a message: "I'm at the airport, I miss you." But the next second, the boarding gate announcement came on, he put away his phone, picked up his briefcase and hurriedly left.
In the back seat of the taxi, he would occasionally close his eyes, surrounded by the sounds of traffic and radio news. Amidst the chaotic noise, he would picture her writing with her head down, her profile quiet and focused.
My heart skipped a beat, and my fingers unconsciously swiped open the chat window. [What are you doing?]
The reply came almost instantly: "Meeting in a bit."
In the dead of night, he was the only one left in the hotel room. His laptop screen was still lit, with unprocessed documents piling up one after another. He rubbed his temples, but his gaze fell on his phone on the bedside table.
He scrolled to Xia Zhiyao's profile picture on WeChat, almost clicking on it, but then remembered that she might already be asleep and he didn't want to be woken up, so he gently put the phone down.
"Next time, when I'm not so busy," he always comforted himself.
But when he turned around, the room was empty and quiet, and he suddenly realized that the words he wanted to say had been put aside time and time again, slipping through his fingers like fine sand, and he didn't even have time to grab them.
Zhou Yue always felt that his relationship with Xia Zhiyao was already very stable. After going through a lot of detours over the years, they finally got back together. Now they were close, tacit, and their feelings were natural and intense.
In his view, it was only a matter of time before they got together. Once Xia Zhiyao got over that hurdle and was willing to meet his parents, it would be a natural progression.
Even though he was too busy with work and often didn't reply to WeChat messages or hang up on phone calls, he was certain she would understand. In his heart, they were already bound together by fate, and even if they drifted apart occasionally, their fundamental relationship would not change.
Zhou Yue felt that what he needed to do was to manage his current job well, support his future family, and wait for Xia Zhiyao to be ready and agree to meet his parents with him. Then everything would fall into place naturally.
In his heart, they had long been on the same path, and it was only a matter of time before they reached the end together.
Xia Zhiyao, however, did not think that way. On the surface, she remained rational and the capable director, as if no storm could shake her.
Only she knew that the unease was slowly growing in her heart, and during the day, she would unconsciously glance at her phone while working.
As soon as a message pops up, she immediately opens it and replies as quickly as possible, but most of the time, the screen only shows the message she sent, followed by a long silence.
On one occasion, they had finally arranged to meet for dinner. She arrived at the restaurant early and waited for a full hour before receiving a call from him adding the dinner to the itinerary at the last minute.
Sorry, I'll make it up to you next time.
She managed to say "It's okay" through her voice, and as she hung up the phone, the smile on her face gradually faded, while her palms turned white from being dug in by her nails.
The hardest part was those nights when she worked overtime. She would stop from time to time, look up at the lights of thousands of homes outside the window, and imagine where Zhou Yue was at that moment. Was he busy in some unfamiliar city, or was he drinking and chatting with clients in a high-end restaurant?
"Mr. Xia, aren't you going home yet?" the cleaning lady asked with concern as she pushed her cleaning cart past.
"I'll leave right away," she would always answer, but she would often end up sitting in the empty office until even later.
The more this happened, the harder it was to suppress the absurd thoughts in her heart. Was he gradually becoming a little tired of her? But then she thought it was ridiculous, so she tried even harder to suppress her emotions and pretended to be calm.
Zhou Yue thought their relationship was as solid as a rock, but Xia Zhiyao felt that the ground beneath her feet might collapse at any moment. One was extremely confident, while the other was anxious and uneasy. Separated by an invisible crack, neither of them truly realized it.
At night, she would place her phone next to her pillow, staring blankly at the screen, knowing he was busy, but still unable to resist waiting for his call.
Sometimes I would stay up until the early hours of the morning, my eyelids drooping with sleep, but my hand would still be tightly gripping my phone, and I would eventually drift off to sleep.
That kind of waiting was a slow torture. She would repeatedly look through their previous chat history, reading every word carefully, as if trying to find a trace of warmth in it.
But with those increasingly brief replies, "okay," "busy," "I'll talk to you later," she knew very well that Zhou Yue hadn't done anything wrong. He was just too busy, overwhelmed by work and barely able to breathe.
But she just couldn't control it; a familiar panic would always rise in her heart, as if she had been left behind and might be abandoned at any moment.
She knew this feeling all too well; it was a shadow left over from past relationships.
That long-standing, clandestine relationship made her accustomed to feeling insecure and to gradually losing herself while waiting.
Even though the person in front of her was different, even though she told herself countless times that Zhou Yue would not leave, that shadow would still sneak up unexpectedly and entangle her tightly.
Finally, one Friday night, she couldn't resist dialing his number. The phone rang for a long, long time, and just as she was about to hang up, his tired and hoarse voice came from the other end: "Zhiyao? It's so late, what's wrong?"
Her tears welled up almost instantly, not because of grievance, but because of the tenderness hidden in that "Zhiyao," which made her suddenly realize that he had not forgotten her, but... he had just been pushed too far away by life.
"It's nothing, I just... wanted to hear your voice." Her voice trembled slightly as she tried to remain calm.
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, then she heard him sigh softly. "I'm sorry, Zhiyao. I know I've been too busy lately... I'll be right back, just half an hour, okay?"
It was late at night when the door opened. Xia Zhiyao suddenly opened her eyes from the sofa. Zhou Yue walked in, his suit jacket draped over his arm, his shirt slightly disheveled, and his eyes showing obvious fatigue.
Seeing her sitting there, his eyes softened, and he walked straight over and pulled her into his arms.
"Zhiyao, I'm sorry." His voice was low and hoarse, tinged with the smell of alcohol and exhaustion, but it was very sincere.
Xia Zhiyao froze for a moment. She wanted to hug him back, but her hands wouldn't obey her commands, and she could only hold onto his clothes tightly.
She knew he hadn't done anything wrong; he was just too busy. But at that moment, reason and emotion completely crumbled. All the pent-up shadows, fears, waiting, and grievances from the past surged and erupted in the quiet night.
She suddenly realized that even though she had moved on from Zhang Luyuan's lingering shadow, and even though she had decided that Zhou Yue was someone she could rely on, when she was truly in a close relationship, that deep-seated fear would still return without warning in an instant.
Countless fragments uncontrollably surfaced in her mind: those late-night waits only to receive a cold, perfunctory reply; those who promised to accompany her but then changed their minds and rushed off to meet other people; those futures she naively believed she could have, which ultimately collapsed into ruins amidst repeated disappointments and self-deception.
Even though someone was willing to stay for her, give her a home, and give her warmth, there was still an invisible high wall in her heart, coldly separating everything.
Some wounds cannot be healed by time. They are like blunt thorns that have sunk deep into the bone marrow. They may seem harmless on ordinary days, but at certain moments, in the breath and temperature, they suddenly burst open, causing pain that catches you off guard.
She was afraid. She was afraid that one day, even Zhou Yue would get tired of her. She was afraid that happiness would suddenly end, and she would be left in a sorry state once again. She was afraid that she would give all her courage and love again, only to be met with a devastated ending.
Zhou Yue looked at her quietly. The dim light fell on her profile, and her features remained delicate. At first, she tried to hold back her tears, her eyelashes trembling violently and her eyes welling up with tears. But the next second, the tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably.
She lowered her head, trying to hide it, but the suppressed sobs in her throat gradually escaped, and her shoulders trembled uncontrollably.
The more she tried to control it, the more her tears flowed, until finally, she curled up into a ball, unable to suppress her sobs any longer.
It wasn't just simple grievance, but rather the collapse of long-suppressed fear and helplessness in an instant. She cried fiercely, as if all the suppressed emotions had been torn open and poured out in a torrent. Tears soaked her chin and slid down her neck. Her voice was choked and broken, filled with utter despair.
Zhou Yue's heart clenched, and his breathing became erratic. These days, he always thought she was as determined as he was, but the woman in front of him was completely unlike herself, as if she had been caught up by all the pain of the past and had nowhere to escape.
Zhou Yue suddenly realized: her unease was not due to a trivial matter, but rather a deep-rooted fear that had extended from the past to the present, a shadow deeply etched into her bones.
"Zhiyao." His voice was low and hoarse, with a barely perceptible tremor. Xia Zhiyao was stunned for a moment and subconsciously looked up.
Zhou Yue slowly squatted down to meet her gaze. His expression remained stern, but his eyes were clearly filled with heartache and unease.
"Are you... scared?" He asked this question for the first time.
Zhou Yue stared at her, his voice softer than usual: "What are you afraid of? Are you afraid I'll leave?"
Xia Zhiyao nodded subconsciously at first, but the next second, she shook her head hurriedly, her movements almost panicked, her voice hoarse: "No...it's not that I don't believe you, I just..."
Before she could finish speaking, a sob choked her throat. She hugged herself tightly, as if trying to suppress her unease, but her body trembled uncontrollably.
“What I’m afraid of isn’t you leaving…” she choked up, her voice breaking, “but that one day, everything will suddenly be gone.”
Zhou Yue's chest tightened suddenly. He reached out and pulled her into his arms, but she remained stiff. "Zhiyao..."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it. I always thought you felt the same way I did, that our relationship was very stable... but I was wrong." He slowly lowered his head, resting his chin on the top of her head, his hand patting her back gently. "Don't be afraid, I won't leave. Just tell me what you need."
He pressed his lips to her hair, his voice low yet firm, as if making a vow, "No matter how busy I am, I will take care of you."
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